The Next Evolution of KM: From Service Provider to Enterprise Capability

Approaches and practices: To enable the enterprise to do knowledge work, a key responsibility for KM is to develop the templates, processes, and training for activities. Here are some examples:

♦ Lessons learned

♦ Knowledge capture and transfer

♦ Communities and networks

♦ Content management

♦ Technical expertise programs

The goal is to systematize these activities so employees can leverage them in their day-to-day work.

AWS illustrates how KM can embed knowledge practices into the flow of work without owning every activity (apqc.org/resource-library/resource/raising-bar-content-quality-amazon-web-services/html). The AWS Prescriptive Guidance (APG) team enables the consultants, builders, and other employees closest to customers to create and share best-practice content. APG provides the publishing lifecycle, templates, quality standards, and governance that make those contributions standardized, reliable, and reusable.

APG’s Bar Raiser program, for example, distributes responsibility for content quality across a network of 150 volunteer subject matter experts spanning 14 technical domains. These experts review content using a common quality framework, scoring rubrics, checklists, and governance dashboards. This model offloads technical validation from the KM team and instead leverages the expertise of the people doing the work. KM provides the structure and guardrails that help the organization capture and scale that expertise.

Next Steps

Historically, many KM teams have operated primarily as service providers. They run communities, manage platforms, support content, facilitate knowledge transfer, and help employees find and share knowledge.

Those services aren’t going away. But as AI and other changes force organizations to be more intentional with their knowledge efforts, KM’s main job increasingly becomes building the organization’s capacity to manage knowledge, rather than personally performing every knowledge activity.

As more organizations move to an enterprise-focused knowledge model, KM can set itself up to provide value by ensuring the following elements are in place:

♦ Connect KM to enterprise priorities. Focus KM efforts on the business problems and strategic priorities where better knowledge can create value.

♦ Clarify what KM should own, influence, and enable. Define responsibilities across KM, business teams, and functional partners so that KM enables enterprise knowledge without trying to own every knowledge activity.

♦ Build the ecosystem to deliver it. Put the governance, partnerships, methods, and systems in place that allow knowledge to be managed and applied as part of everyday work across the enterprise.

To start thinking about how to best support your organization in its evolution to becoming a more knowledge-capable enterprise, initiate conversations with leaders and stakeholders to answer these questions:

♦ Who sets enterprise KM priorities? Who decides which business problems warrant KM investment?

♦ What responsibilities belong to KM versus the business? Who owns the standards for content and knowledge practices?

♦ How are these practices embedded into existing processes?

♦ How are tools and technologies selected and governed? How are AI and emerging technology integrated without fragmenting knowledge governance?

♦ How is success measured?

Discussing these issues signals a fundamental shift in how the organization thinks about KM. The goal is no longer simply to determine where KM sits or what services the KM team should deliver, but to build the enterprise’s capacity to manage knowledge. That means connecting KM to enterprise priorities; clarifying what KM should own, influence, and enable; and creating the governance and partnerships that allow knowledge work to happen across the business. KM may have a departmental home, but it can no longer have departmental boundaries. The question for KM leaders is no longer simply, “Where should KM sit?” but, “How does knowledge need to work across our enterprise—and what operating model will make that possible?”